Before reading this entry, please queue up “Princes of the Universe,” by Queen, on the music streaming service of your preference.

For the fifth and final Dungeons & Dragons box set, Frank Mentzer finally pitched the idea of levels into the trash bin. In fact, it essentially discards the entire previous system, converting immortal characters to an entirely new system of powers. Instead of dungeons and castles, much of your time as an immortal is spent creating your own plane of existence. And wearing loin clothes, apparently.

The DM’s book attempts to find things for immortal characters to do. It details the multiverse, a cosmology that includes versions of the planes as detailed in Manual of the Planes, as well as the entirety of the Milky Way. There’s plenty of new monsters (including the creepiest illustration of a glabrezu I’ve ever seen), many of them weird. There’s rules for the different forms your god characters can take.

It is all very interesting. You can tell a good deal of thought went into it. It is probably Mentzer’s magnum opus. I love it. It is totally worth the read. I just can’t imagine playing it?

(In a serious bit of nerdy kismet, the Immortal Rules did, in fact, come out the same year Highlander hit theaters. This seems important.)